Comparative static-structural analysis of standard diesel-engine piston of three wrought aluminum alloys using finite element method in ANSYS

Abstract In this work, the variation of displacement (deformation), stress and elastic strain distributions in three different wrought aluminum alloy materials in a standard diesel engine piston was carried out. The standard diesel engine was a single-cylinder four-stroke type. The analysis was done by considering the specification of a ZS1115NM diesel engine using the finite-element-method (FEM) in ANSYS. The essence of the three selected materials was to get the suitable one for the production of the piston. The methodology implies designing the piston-elements before modelling in Solidworks 2023 software. After the modelling, the 3D views of the models were imported respectively into the ANSYS 2023 R1 Workbench for the static-structural analysis. The used materials for the model were wrought aluminum alloys A92218, A92618 and A94032. The meshing of the 3D models in ANSYS Workbench, were respectively done to get the nodes and elements. Applying fixed and frictionless supports, structural-boundary-conditions and mechanical loads (gas combustion pressure), respectively gave values of the total deformation (displacement), normal stress, von Mises (equivalent) stress, maximum principal stress, normal elastic strain, stress intensity, safety factors and strain energy for the three models, respectively. The comparison/validation was done with results obtained by simulating in Solidworks and the ANSYS software, respectively using the A92618 model only. The results were satisfactory. The von Mises stresses for the three models were far less than their yield strengths. Hence, the design was safe and justifiable. However, the A92218 model was chosen because it had the lower values of total deformation $$\:\left(0.08296\:mm\right)$$ , lowest maximum normal stress $$\:\left(76.948\:MPa\right)$$ , lower maximum von Mises stress $$\:\left(119.42\:MPa\right)$$ , lower strains and high minimum safety factor $$\:\left(2.5372\right)$$ . From literature, a suitable material for the production of a diesel engine piston is the one that gives the lower total deformation and lowest stresses. The results were validated using the equilibrium of forces approach to ensure that the static equilibrium conditions are satisfied. The validation of results was also done by comparing the ANSYS simulated results with that of the Solidworks simulated ones using the A92618 model. The percentage deviation for the maximum total deformation, normal stress and normal elastic strain in the A92618 model was $$\:6.442\:\%$$ , $$\:1.143\:\%$$ and $$\:0.887\:\%$$ , respectively.